In the briefing with the Houston Chronicle, CSN’s Julia Morales, MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart and radio broadcaster Robert Ford, Porter discussed his highlight of the season, his belief that Grossman is probably done for the year, the team’s offseason wish list and much more.

I edited the questions to tighten them up. Enjoy:

Q: Bo, can you discuss what you told the team in the pregame meeting you held Monday?

Porter: The meeting was more about us finishing the season strong. I said to them on behalf of myself, the rest of the staff, the organization that we appreciate their effort this year. Despite some very tough times, these guys have been resilient. They’ve never quit. Throughout their preparation they’ve given it everything that they had. I said to them, I said, ‘Regardless of the record so far and so on, we’re not going to quit at this point either. We’re going to go ahead and we’re going to play this thing all the way until the end the way we’ve been giving it the effort in which we’ve had all year.’ It was short and sweet and to the point.”

Q: Are some guys pressing?

Porter: I don’t think so. You get to this part of the year, and I keep saying this, I think it’s good that we’re playing the teams that we’re playing because they’re focused and they’re giving us their best shot. It has nothing to do with our guys not putting forth their best effort, but I think it’s good to be playing these teams.

Q: How about facing Yu Darvish tonight?

Porter: We’ve seen him a few times. Let’s face it this guy is pretty good. At the same time, I think our guys are up to the challenge.

Q: What is the status on Robbie Grossman, who hasn’t played because of an oblique strain.

Porter: The reports that I keep getting is that he’s not able to swing pain free. He has to be able to swing pain free for me to even consider him making a return to the game. … With all of the rehab which he’s been able to do and the treatment he’s been able to get throughout this whole time, what you don’t want to happen is him to get back on the field in the last five games and now he blows it out and now he’s down for a month into the offseason. If there’s any doubt whatsoever for me it’s not worth it. He ould have to literally be completely pain free and you’re looking at him and you know he’s taking batting practice and there’s not any twinge or anything whatsoever and you go, ‘You know what, I’m comfortable putting him in the game.’

Q: Has Grossman taking batting practice lately?

Porter: No, he has not taken BP on the field.

Q: Would say he probably won’t play again this season?

Porter: Right now if I had to look at a timetable and go, ‘Will Grossman play between now and Sunday?’ I would have to say probably not.’

Q: What did you think of Grossman’s second stint in the majors this year?

Porter: He came back up the second time and he proved that he belonged here. It’s a credit to him. It’s a credit to him taking the information from his first stint here down to the minor leagues and understanding exactly what John Mallee and Dan Radison and the coaches at Triple-A worked with him on. He came back here and proved that he belongs here.

Q: What did you learn this year?

Porter: I learned a lot about our team. I learned a lot about myself. It’s been very challenging, but at the same I would not change all of the experiences in which we had been through. I think we needed to go through them as an organization. I needed to go through them as a manager. It’s going to make all of us better as we continue to move forward into next year, into the offseason. I think as far as roster construction there are things I will take from the season that will help my decision making moving forward.

Q: If you had to pick an Astros pitcher of the year and Astros rookie of the year, who would you pick?

Porter: I would probably have to say Brandon Barnes if you just look at the body of work and him coming into the season pretty much looked upon as a platoon guy, a guy who would come in for defense. He pretty much earned his way into the lineup with his performance and with his play. Defensively I think it pretty much speaks for itself what he’s been able to do out in center field.

Q: Astros pitcher of the year?

Porter: Pitcher, just because we’ve had so much turnover, I would have to say (Jarred) Cosart. You look at his 10 starts and what it is he was able to do with those 10 starts I would have to say Cosart and the numbers pretty much back it up.

Q: Is there anything that really surprised you more than anything else?

Porter: I would say coming out of spring training, I would not have thought from a bullpen standpoint that we would have had the struggles that we had, you know on a whole. I’m not talking about any particularly point of the year. I’m talking about on the whole, the number of leads we gave up. I don’t know the number of saves we blew as a team. I’ve said at different points throughout the course (of the season), ‘This is not going to last the whole year.’ We’ve all been around baseball a long time and at some point you’re saying to yourself, ‘This is not going to continue on.’ So that was a little shock.”

Q: Are you still confident you’re headed in the right path?

Porter: Oh, yes. I think, one, we have answers to a lot of questions that were not answered when we started spring training. Now as an organization we have a pretty good idea of the guys that we believe are going to be able to help us. We also know what it is we have to go get. Again, when you look the course of the season – I’ve said this many times – I did not want to get to the end of the year and have any unanswered questions going into the off-season. When I say unanswered, meaning not having enough information to be able to make a pretty good judgment on a particular situation or player.

Q: What do you think you need to go get?

Porter: We’re going to need to get some bullpen help. I think that there is probably the No. 1 area in which we’re going to need to upgrade. We’re probably going to need to upgrade some place in the outfield. It all depends on where at in the outfield. It all depends on where at in the outfield and who is available. We can upgrade in the DH position. It all depends on how the first base position shakes out. So there’s areas on the ballclub that we know that we can upgrade, and we’re going to set out to upgrade those situations, whether it’s internally or externally.

Q: Are you a better manager than when you went in?

Porter: Well, this is the thing if you don’t learn; none of us know it all. If you get to the point where you stop learning then you probably just need to go ahead and go home. I’m one of those that believe you should get better each and every day. Each and every day, each and every season I’m going to look to get better. I’m going to look to improve.

Q: What was the high point?

Porter: (Cody) Clark getting his hit. That was awesome. I had tears in my eyes. One, you’re talking about a journeyman. It’s one of those things that you wanted it to happen so bad, that when it happen you were just so excited. I was like excited, excited when het go his hit. … For real. It wasn’t a win. It was that moment that this is why you come to the ballpark for, to witness stuff like this. I was extremely happy for the young man.